Audi A3 Scam

unclebulgaria

Just wanted to put up this thread regarding the sale of a black Audi A3 SE TDi 77,000 miles 2 owners very good condition, RAC warranty.
The guy selling the car is shown as Richard Albans via a company called Major Foote Ltd.
Please do not contact this man as he is trying to scam money via Western Union. He will request a transfer of money and then ask that the transfer document be sent to him and in return he will deposit £2400 and send you a transfer document to prove his honest intentions.
Not sure this is in the right place but hope it stops anyone else from pursuing this scam.

forgotmyname

And you saw this advertised where?

worried_jim

One born every minute.

TradePro

Thanks, though I think it will only help people who think they can get the car for less than half price, and will jump through hoops in order to do so.

Is it reasonable to assume that you originally enquired about the car because it was a 'too good to be true' price?

Hoof_Hearted

If anyone mentions Western Union it is automatically a scam....

C_Mababejive

Have you reported the matter to the police?

motorguy

TradePro wrote: »

Thanks, though I think it will only help people who think they can get the car for less than half price, and will jump through hoops in order to do so.

Is it reasonable to assume that you originally enquired about the car because it was a 'too good to be true' price?

+1

These scams prey on the terminally dim.

oscarward

I saw something similar. trawling ebay just looking for 'My husband has run off with his secretary and told me to sell his car for what I could get' type deals.

Aston Martin 2007 vantage for £8k. Worth an email I thought to find if it was genuine. First thing seller did was take me out of ebay messaging to a yahoo account.

Story was the car was in Hamburg and seller couldn't register it there as German authorities don't allow RHD registration so he had to sell. Yeah right! He would ship to UK and I would place money in ebay escrow account and when car arrived I could inspect and we could tell escrow to release funds to him.

I'm not that stupid but I thought I would yank his chain. He had bought a domain ebay-user-escrow.com and tried to get me to confirm to an email addres on that domain. Was held at an isp in Aberdeen! He'd registered it with his presumably real name and address in Dundee.

Ok Can I see a copy of the V5, no he says He couldn't send a scan of the V5 as the shipper needed it.

Ok can I nip over to Hamburg to see car. No it's packed up ready to ship and couldn't be unpacked.

Ok how do I know I can trust you? His answer was I could trust ebay as the money would be held in escrow.

By which time I'd had enough.

I reported him to ebay where surprise surprise no such seller and they don't do escrow anyway.

I also reported him to isp who cancelled the domain but wouldn't tell me any more on account of potential fraudulent activity.

Never heard any more after that.

Still dream of buying a cheap aston from a spurned wife. (it does happen, recently a Birmingham radio dj!)

unclebulgaria

forgotmyname wrote: »

And you saw this advertised where?

Auto Trader (who I notified and were grateful as they checked and it was a scam)

unclebulgaria

worried_jim wrote: »

One born every minute.

Me or people in general?
1. I didn't buy it.
2. I followed it up when I smelt a rat
3. I put the thread up to stop people who might be too trusting from making a big mistake.

unclebulgaria

TradePro wrote: »

Thanks, though I think it will only help people who think they can get the car for less than half price, and will jump through hoops in order to do so.

Is it reasonable to assume that you originally enquired about the car because it was a 'too good to be true' price?

Yep!
When I thought 'this can't be right' my partner and I decided to follow it up. No money changed hands.